


Reflections

by MlleMusketeer



Series: Mirrorverse [2]
Category: Transformers: Prime, Transformers: Shattered Glass
Genre: Beating, Creepy SG Optimus is Creepy, Creepy societal expectations, Dubious Consent, Grief, Impersonation, Implied/Referenced Torture, Invasion, M/M, Mechpreg, Mirror Universe, Post-Predacons Rising (Prime Movie), Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-01
Updated: 2014-12-26
Packaged: 2018-02-06 22:50:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 13
Words: 16,767
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1875429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MlleMusketeer/pseuds/MlleMusketeer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post-Predacons Rising. Ratchet deals with the loss of his bondmate while cut off from Cybertron for medical reasons. But he doesn't have the luxury of grieving long, because an old enemy has his optics on the restored planet...and Ratchet is the one thing standing in his way.</p>
<p>And everything would be so much simpler if Ratchet wasn't carrying...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The sequel to 'Parsimony'. I highly recommend you read that first! Also, due to me being busy, may be sporadic in updates.

The first night without Optimus was not the worst.

He was too numb. Too exhausted. Too focused on making sure that Ultra Magnus didn’t offline. He only refuled because Arcee shoved a cube under his nasal ridge every hour.

The second night, he was too exhausted, and slept like something dead.

The third night, he returned to Earth. Ultra Magnus did, too. Both of them were unsuitable for Cybertron as it was now--too much radiation for the wounded Ultra Magnus, too much radiation for the protoform nestled under Ratchet’s spark.

It was after Ultra Magnus left, five Earth days, before Ratchet felt the first pang of grief through the numbness. It was seven before he could keen, when he reached for his connection to Optimus’s personal comms and found it dead.

Agent Fowler arrived the next morning to find him curled over on himself in the middle of the floor, arms wrapped around his knees, still keening in staticky bursts, as he had been for the last twelve hours. 

He explained everything to Agent Fowler. He likely shouldn’t have, but he couldn’t help it. It wrung itself from him in great staticky bursts—while Cybertronian vocalizers could withstand much longer bursts of grief than human, he had still overstressed his—and he hated himself for it even as he spoke. He knew enough about Agent Fowler’s world that he was wary of the reaction that might garner. There were far too many humans who took issue with pronouns.

Agent Fowler wasn’t one. 

Agent Fowler came down from the mezzanine and sat with him all that day and talked to him quietly, and told his superiors to put Ratchet on administrative leave, and called the kids to tell them to take the week off. Personal reasons, he said.

Funnily enough, it was Miko who didn’t ask for an explanation, just said, “Tell the Doc to take care of himself, ok?”

She didn’t say, “If you need anything, call,” like everyone else did.

She just showed up several days later with a bag of energon goodies she admitted she’d used government facilities to make. 

“Fowler said it was ok. And Wheeljack taught me the basics,” she said. “Turns out I’m ok at chemistry. Tell me if you want me to scram.” 

He didn’t. 

In fact, he didn’t want her to leave at all and she settled down on the couch. They watched an Earth monster movie together, one that didn’t require thinking of any sort, and Ratchet fell into recharge still sitting behind the couch. Miko didn’t. She switched to a video game sometime in the night.

The next night, it was Agent Fowler who stayed. 

Then Nurse Darby. 

It helped.

Doing anything was difficult. Ratchet began taking drives by himself, something to do. Something that didn’t remind him of Optimus. He preferred early morning, when few humans were on the road.

And, mechanically, he did what was necessary to take care of himself and the sparkling.

He tried to think, sometimes, _At least I have this much of him_ , but it always rang hollow. Optimus and Optimus’s creation were two very different things. He hadn’t even told Optimus that he was carrying until after Megatron was dead. In the early stages, it didn’t much matter, in terms of energon consumption. 

And he couldn’t have borne to terminate it. Not after Optimus’s near death with the destruction of their base. Not with their species dwindling. Ratchet had kept silent. During those last, hectic weeks, it had seemed that they would either win or die, and either way, concerns about energon and the number of able-bodied combatants had been strictly short-term. 

After the Nemesis, after Megatron had fallen and the Predacon fled, he dragged himself aching back to his medbay and scanned himself, sick with dread.

The newspark lived.

He’d sagged against the scanner and commed Optimus to come see him.

Optimus had been so happy. 

He could still see Optimus’s faceplates, the disbelief and open joy. And then sadness, because they both knew that Ratchet would have to remain on Earth for the duration of his carrying cycle. Brief visits only, constrained again by energon and time. 

They’d agreed it was worth it.

And now Optimus was dead, and Ratchet had spent only a handful of days with him in the preceding year. It hurt too much to even think about, sometimes.

When he did think about it, he pulled off the road and hid somewhere where no one could see him break down. As always, he hated himself for it, hated the convulsive shrieks of static tearing their way from him. Hated the optic cleanser that flowed of its own accord. Hated that memory-ghosts of Optimus’s field settled around him. 

It was still dark when he set out on his drive that day. There was only a glimmer of light at the horizon when he pulled off the road, and the sun had yet to come over the horizon, the sky peculiarly green when he finally staggered to his feet and pressed a hand over his chestplates to quiet the nudging of the sparkling against his chamber. Those chestplates had begun to distend, very slightly.

A blaster nudged his helm. Ratchet froze, not turning around.

“Remain still,” said a voice that had only had a place in his worst nightmares. He knew it was wrong, heard the faint harmonics that differentiated the two of them, felt the edge of that cruel field again. But something in his grieving spark lightened and responded, because it was so, so similar to _his_ voice.

“Optimus,” he breathed. 


	2. Chapter 2

“Lord Prime,” that quiet voice corrected, and Optimus’s counterpart stepped into view, the blaster trained on Ratchet’s helm. 

“No,” said Ratchet. “Never to you.”

“I do not need you alive,” said Optimus, still quiet. The blaster hummed. Ratchet shuttered his optics. The exhaustion curled in his frame, and with it grief and despair. Optimus was gone, and this cruel parody of him remained. 

But there was no burst of heat and light, no merciful oblivion. Only the hum of the blaster and then Optimus’s voice, puzzled. “You are carrying.”

“Yes,” said Ratchet, optics still shuttered. “His.”

The blaster hum cut off. The press of the barrel to his helm lifted. He unshuttered his optics and looked into red ones, the optic ridges drawn down in consternation.

“His,” said the Lord Prime, slowly. “You are carrying his newspark.”

“Yes,” said Ratchet. 

A clawed hand seized him by the arm. Ratchet bit back a protest, scrambled for his distress signal. Why he hadn’t done so earlier, he couldn’t think.

“It seems that I cannot easily eliminate you,” said the parody of Optimus. “Not when you carry the progeny of a fellow Prime. You will accompany me.”

“No!” Ratchet pulled against him. The distress signal went out, wide frequency, and Optimus’s features tightened; he must have picked up on it. A blow caught Ratchet over the helm. He fell.

* * *

 

Ratchet came back to hazy consciousness to something like Ultra Magnus’s voice.

“He’s carrying,” Ultra Magnus said, sounding unsettled. “I’ve checked the coding. It must be the false Prime’s sparkling.”

“Do not call him a false Prime,” said that voice so like Optimus’s it made Ratchet’s spark ache. “Even he was, indeed, a Prime, and his sparkling is precious indeed, no matter the carrier’s status.”

“So you don’t want him dead?”

“No. Keep him. The sparkling will be of value to us, when it emerges.”

“Yes, Lord Prime.”

Ratchet moved, found himself unrestrained. He onlined his optics.

“Leave us,” said Optimus, gesturing at the other mech in the room—Ultra Magnus, Ratchet supposed. But an Ultra Magnus with red optics and sharpened dentae, flat purples and blacks instead of blue and red, and a sullen, resentful air that the real Ultra Magnus would never have tolerated from one of his soldiers, let alone himself. 

Ultra Magnus inclined his helm in a short nod and turned away, his optics lingering on Ratchet in a way that made all of Ratchet’s plating fan out, a cold calculating revulsion.

“Why haven’t you killed me?” 

Optimus stepped closer, the red optics strangely gentle. Ratchet tensed, tried to reach for battle protocols and found nothing.

Optimus pulsed assurance at him, which stunned him into stillness, and then laid a hand over his abdomen. “The life growing within you is worth a thousand of you,” he said softly, as if he thought it was a compliment. Ratchet glared at him, composure regained, an effect lost as the sparkling turned over and kicked, hard. The air went out of his vents with a grunt.

“So strong,” murmured Optimus. “The worlds you will rule, little one, with your sire’s strength and my guidance.” His optics lifted to meet Ratchet’s. “Despite your station, it seems my counterpart was not in error to make you his consort. Such a strong sparkling must of necessity have a strong carrier. For that choice alone, he did well. Regardless of your…flaws.”

“Remove your hand,” said Ratchet. Optimus’s optic ridges rose in amusement. “Now.”

Optimus did. 

“Why are you here?” _I thought you were dead_ went unspoken. 

Optimus paused, looked at him a long while. Ratchet fought the urge to flinch, remained still. That red gaze was all together too much like Megatron’s, but he would not give this version of Optimus the satisfaction of seeing that affect him. 

“We lost,” said Optimus. “We lost, and Megatron slew Ratchet upon the Omega lock. They have Cybertron, and we are exiled.”

Was he asking for sympathy? Ratchet glared at him. “Why are you here?” he said again. 

He did flinch as Optimus flashed his field over him, sharp and hateful. 

“I do not intend to kill you until the sparkling emerges,” said Optimus. “Do not think that grants you any special dispensation as regards your behavior.”

Ratchet glared at him, didn’t say anything.

“We need a home,” said Optimus. “Megatron has taken our Cybertron from us. We face extinction if we stay.”

“So you came to take ours instead,” said Ratchet, too angry to be careful. 

“Your Prime is gone,” said Optimus flatly. “Your Ultra Magnus is too badly wounded to face combat. Your Decepticons are already defeated. And you, medic, are the only one who can identify me. I had intended to kill you, but your sparkling is too valuable to waste.”

“You…” The thought was repulsive. “You intend to replace him.”

“Yes,” said Optimus. “They will offer little resistance this way.”

Ratchet snorted. “The Autobots aren’t stupid,” he said. “They’ll see through you in a sparkbeat. Our Optimus, the _true_ Optimus, never would hurt another mech the way you do. You’re not going to fool _anyone._ ”

He hunched his shoulders against the next blow of Optimus’s field, but it didn’t come. 

He looked up.

“And what else can you tell me about your Optimus?” 

“I _will_ tell you nothing,” said Ratchet, already cursing himself for revealing what he had. 

This time the flare of the field did come, and he cried out with the force of it. When he’d recovered himself enough, he said, “You need me alive, and healthy, _Prime_. Psychological battering isn’t going to do the sparkling any good. She _will_ pick up on that.” That was a lie; he’d been using his own field to disrupt Optimus’s around his gestational chamber.

A long pause as Optimus looked at him. 

“True,” he said at last. “Again, your sparkling saves you. She will not preserve your team mates, whether you elect to tell me or not.”

With that, he seized one of Ratchet’s wrists and shackled it to the berth with a hard light restraint. He paused, looked as if he were about to say something, then turned and stalked from the room.

* * *

 

“They used a groundbridge,” said Raf. “See, the drag marks and footprints end here.”

“Pede prints,” said Miko, looking at the deserted road. “Who’d wanna kidnap Ratchet? I mean, Megatron’s gone all redemption-y, Starscream’s supposed to be dead, MECH kinda got blown up…”

“Predaking?” said Jack. 

“I checked,” said Miko. “Fowler said he’s on Cybertron. Talking to Bumblebee right now. So no.”

“Lemme see if I can tell what specific sort of bridge it was,” said Raf. 

Miko plopped down in the dirt and watched Raf work. Ratchet was really rubbing off on him. He’d even started to make ‘yip yip yip’ noises. And grumbling.

She traced lines in the dust, frowning. Who would want Ratchet? His information was way out of date. Optimus was dead—pang of grief, she shoved it aside—so he probably wasn’t a very useful hostage. Unless someone wanted to find out about Cybertronian pregnancies, which she was pretty sure wold wig most humans out...

There was one other possibility.

She got up. “I’m gonna make a call. You keep on scanning, okay?”

“Okay,” said Raf. Then, “Miko?” 

But Miko was already around the rock, fitting the little signal scrambler to her cell phone and dialing.

“Come on come on pick up,” she muttered, bouncing on her toes. He always took forever. He was so much better at texting, but she needed answers _now—_

The comm picked up. Sleepy grumble, sound of someone sitting up. “Miko?” A scraping noise, probably a huge robotic hand being drawn over a huge robotic face. Welp. At least it was the right one. She’d forgotten to turn on the scrambler once and gotten _this_ universe’s version and hadn’t that been exciting. Ultra Magnus had credited her with single handedly putting the peace process back ten years. “What’s wrong? I will not take it kindly if this is a joke.”

“Hi Megs,” she said, trying to keep her voice casual. “It’s two AM. Do you know where your Optimus is?”


	3. Chapter 3

“What?” said Megatron. 

“You know, your Optimus. The Optimus from your universe. Big sword. Sorta purple. Really bad temper?”

“Why is this relevant?” said Megatron. “What happened?”

Miko twiddled a pigtail, increasingly suspicious she was right. “Ratch’s missing. We found a groundbridge and drag marks. I’m pretty sure that your Optimus is the most likely reason.”

“Stop calling him mine,” said Megatron. “Why exactly is he the most likely reason?”

“Oh,” said Miko, “I dunno. A hunch? Just because your counterpart has gone off to be a hermit somewhere, and MECH is disbanded, and Starscream’s counterpart miiight have kinda gotten chewed up by Predacons… You know, a hunch. One of those things us humans get.”

There was a long pause on the other end of the comm. It practically vibrated with guilt.

Bingo, thought Miko. Nakadai scores on the first try. Take that, Raf.

“He’s in exile,” said Megatron, slowly.

“Uh huh,” said Miko. “Where?”

“From Cybertron and Earth. He knows both are under my protection.”

“Uh huuuuh,” said Miko, drawing it out. Megatron might look scarier but you betchya she could make him squirm just like Bulkhead. “And about our Cybertron and Earth?”

Pause.

“He shouldn’t have the resources,” said Megatron. He sounded like he was trying to reassure himself. 

“Uh huuuuuuh.” 

“He shouldn’t even have followers,” said Megatron. “His Ratchet is dead—” Miko stopped pacing at that, pigtails quivering with shock, “—and he no longer has the Matrix. He’s no Prime, and the Autobots are religious fanatics—”

“He lost Ratchet?”

“Yes. Ratchet is dead.”

“So he doesn’t have a science dude.”

“Yes.”

“And he’s alone?”

“Some of the Autobots went with him, the ones who would have been brought up for war crimes.”

“So basically, he’s desperate.”

“Yes.”

“Huh,” said Miko. “How many derelict ships are floating around?”

“We sent the Autobots away by groundbridge. We did not give them a ship.”

“Not answering my question.”

“Some, but not in that sector of space. At least, there shouldn’t be.”

“Uh huuuh,” said Miko. 

Raf poked his head around the boulder. “Miko?”

“Just a sec,” said Miko into the cell phone. “Yeah?”

“Mirror universe,” said Raf. “The particles—”

“Ya huh, save it for Fowler. Hey, Raf says the groundbridge was from your universe.”

Silence. 

“Hey, Megs, you there?”

“My apologies,” said Megatron. “I was alerting Starscream. What do you need us to do?”

Miko grinned. That was more like it.

 

* * *

 

The restraint only allowed him to stand if he rotated around toward the head of the berth, and hardly allowed pacing or any other exercise that a carrier might be advised to undertake. Ratchet resolved to give Optimus an ‘earful’ (and the fact he’d thought that implied he’d been spending way too much time around humans!) the next time he came through. As it was, he sat and thought nasty thoughts at the wall. 

It wasn’t even a proper wall. It was a bulkhead with a hole the size of, well, Bulkhead in it. Someone hadn’t been able to figure out how to use the fragging door, and it let in a draft. A very cold draft.

Ratchet huddled up around himself as best he could and glared. 

He was still glaring when a shape filled the hole and ducked inside.

“Ultra Magnus,” he said.

Magnus walked up to him, confident and cruel, thrust a crudely-sealed stump of an arm at him. “Fix this.”

Ratchet stared at him, at the stump, and barked a short laugh. “With one hand shackled to the berth and no tools? I think not.”

Magnus’s field was like a mace after the carefully honed scalpel of Optimus’s. Ratchet shielded the sparkling as best he could, wincing at the force of it. 

“Beating me isn’t going to improve the situation,” he said. “Untie me and find me tools, and _then_ , if you ask _nicely_ , I might just say no instead of go frag yourself.”

Magnus’s good hand reached out and took him by an audial fin, pinched between thumb and forefinger. Ratchet grunted, his helm wrenched back, crowded up against the berth with Magnus’s arm blocking any other path of escape. Magnus leaned in close to him, field hard and vicious and close, too close. 

Magnus’s intake against his other audial. “What has Optimus told you of our defeat?”

“That my counterpart is dead,” said Ratchet, holding very still and trembling with the effort. The weight of Magnus’s frame against his made his tanks lurch. 

“Yes,” said Magnus. “His lapdog is dead. Have you heard anything more?”

“No.” Magnus’s fingers pinched, and Ratchet shuttered his optics, keeping back a pained cry. 

Magnus chuckled, hot vents gusting over Ratchet’s faceplate. “Unsurprising. Our Prime no longer carries the Matrix, Ratchet. He is no Prime at all, and yet still leads. Does this not strike you as profoundly wrong?”

“Get off me.” 

“Restore my hand,” said Ultra Magnus. “Restore it, and receive my gratitude when the false Prime is overthrown.”

“And you’re the supreme leader of the Autobots? No thanks,” snarled Ratchet. “I’ve seen Starscream frag that one up too many times.” 

The fingers twisted. Ratchet yelped.

“I will win,” said Ultra Magnus. “And you will regret this.”

“What happened to the Matrix?”

Magnus drew away, intake twisted. “Megatron has it.”

“If having the Matrix is so important, why aren’t you following him?”

Magnus gave him a long flat look. “Pyro,” he said. “Ironfist. Guzzle. Rotorstorm. Springer. That is why.”

“Magnus, what are you doing?” Wheeljack’s voice, from the doorway. Bulkhead close behind him. Magnus released Ratchet’s audial and stepped back. 

“Seeing if our new addition is worthwhile,” he said.

“After your last spat with Optimus? Mags, you’re insane. If he finds you here—”

“I would deal with it,” said Magnus. “It is my duty.”

“To get the slag pounded out of you? Yeah, right. Come on, we’re going.” Wheeljack put a hand on Magnus’s arm. “He’s not worth it. Please.”

“Listen to Jackie,” said Bulkhead from the doorway. 

Magnus hesitated, nodded and followed.


	4. Chapter 4

“Woah,” said Miko, staring up as she came out of the groundbridge. “Dude. You look _different_.”

Megatron looked down at himself, as close to embarrassed as she’d ever seen him. “Reformat,” he said. “It happens.”

“Yeah, I’ll say. You’re all shiny. And way bigger. Like, way. What happened?”

Megatron hesitated. “I accepted the Matrix of Leadership,” he said, very reluctantly.

“Dude,” said Miko. “ _How._ ”

“I slew Ratchet on the Omega Lock,” said Megatron. He had probably told it a hundred times. “Optimus flew into a rage, and attempted to use the Matrix and his very spark against me as a weapon. The Matrix rebelled, and forsook him.”

“Can it do that?” said Fowler, coming to stand beside Miko.

“Apparently so. We were greatly startled by it as well,” said Megatron.He looked down at himself. “I did not mean to accept it. Because Optimus had carried it, I thought it was as evil as he—and in some ways, it is. It’s been deeply tainted and twisted by the Primes that have carried it before me, but in and of itself it is not evil, no more than the Cybertronian people themselves are. And it too, needs a time and a place to heal. As long as I do not bend to its will when it goes against my own conscience,it will no longer be an instrument of tyranny. It too, deserves a second chance.”

“So do I have to call you Prime now?” said Miko. 

“Please don’t,” said Megatron. He bent to offer them a hand. Miko hopped up without hesitation. Fowler was somehat more cautious, even though she’d told him a million times that this Megatron was totally different. 

They’d arrived in the _Nemesis’s_ confrence room. Someone (probably Megatron) had set up four seats in the middle of the table, visible now as Megatron walked over to them. One was occupied. 

“Thought you’d have grown a goatee by now,” said the other Agent Fowler. 

“You’re the one working with Megatron,” said Fowler, and settled in the chair. “What’s with the other chair?”

“Raf and Soundwave will be joining us,” said Megatron. 

“What are you doing here?” The other Agent Fowler was staring at her. “You’re not of age—”

“Am too. And I’m an agent,” said Miko, flopping down in a chair. “And Liaison to the Mirrorverse, cuz I get along with him.” She jerked a thumb at Megatron. 

“You made that up.”

“She did,” said Fowler. “It stuck. They tend to.”

“You still don’t have the experience to deal with Prime,” said Agent Fowler. “After—”

“What he did to my counterpart, blah blah.” Miko rolled her eyes. “One, that was Ratchet. Two, did Megatron _not_ tell you about the whole I-took-down-Starscream thing? Evil Starscream?”

“She did,” said Megatron. “And Optimus… is not the threat he used to be.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure of that,” said Fowler, as the conference room door opened. “Ratchet’s gone missing. We know he hasn’t gone back to Cybertron. Too many memories.” 

“And he’s pregnant,” said Miko.

Wow, that quieted the room fast. She looked at the door, where Soundwave stood, having frozen in the doorway, Mirrorverse Raf carefully cupped in his hands. 

“Pregnant,” said Megatron, carefully.

“Yup,” said Miko.

“You mean he’s carrying.”

“Yup.”

Megatron looked at Fowler. “Optimus’s?” There was something weird in his voice. Miko couldn’t quite place it. 

“Yes,” said Fowler. 

Megatron looked at Soundwave.

“He found a spacebridge.”

“Soundwave and I have been checking the long-distance sensor data,” said Raf. “There was a corresponding flare of energy in that area at roughly the right time.”

“Not only do they have a bridge but they can hop universes,” said Fowler, softly. 

“Prepare the _Nemesis_ for departure,” said Megatron. 

* * *

 

Ratchet had fallen into an uneasy recharge when he was hauled upright, his wrists shackled together in front of him, and pulled bodily off the berth. He yelped in protest, but Optimus’s field swirled out around him, silencing the cry in his vocalizer. He looked up into red optics, a closed battlemask. Anger. 

Optimus pulled him through long twisting corridors at a pace he had to almost run to match, stiff joints and cables crying protest. The force of Optimus’s field kept him silent.

They came out into a bigger space, the groundbridge control room. “Activate the spacebridge,” said Optimus. “Wreckers first.”

Ultra Magnus’s intake lifted in a sneer, one that vanished under a blow from Optimus’s field. 

“I did not invite a discussion,” said Optimus. “Wreckers first.”

They went. 

Arcee and Bumblebee went next. Optimus took two steps toward the bridge and Ratchet dug in his heels, panic rising in his intakes. If Optimus took him through that gate, he’d never be found. 

Optimus didn’t even look back at him, just yanked, and Ratchet’s pedes raised sparks on the decking as his shoulders roared protest. 

“I will carry you if I must,” said Optimus. 

“Then carry me,” said Ratchet, a whisper without any of the venom he’d wanted to convey. 

Optimus turned back to look at him. Ratchet’s plating drew in close to his frame. He abruptly regretted onlining his vocalizer.

The world spun as Optimus lifted him, slung him over one shoulder, did something to the control panel and walked into the groundbridge. Ratchet’s tanks heaved and he gulped, shuttered his optics against the vertigo of the spinning bridge. 

He knew where they were before he opened his optics, the scent of hot metal and rust and ozone. He raised his helm, opened his optics again to see the groundbridge belch flames and smoke and collapse, leaving nothing more than a scorch on the rough metal terrain. 

Then silence, the erie silence of a half-dead world. No flames, only the streaks of gold on metal from the rising sun, jagged torn metal black against silver. 

“Cybertron,” said Optimus. “A Cybertron of our own. Set up the shielding for the medic. I will go determine the strength of these Autobots.”

 


	5. Chapter 5

Magnus watched Optimus out of sight, faceplates as neutral as the Magnus Ratchet knew. 

Once he was gone, he turned to look at Ratchet, who shrank into himself at that long, assessing gaze. 

“Set up the shielding,” said Magnus. “I will confer with the medic.”

Ratchet looked up at him from where Optimus had placed him, gently, as if he feared he might break. “I already said no.”

“Do you really want to?” said Magnus, crouching in front of him. He glanced over his shoulder. “Bumblebee. Follow orders.”

Bumblebee’s doorwings went flat against his back. “Optimus’ll beat the scrap out of you if you hurt him.”

“Then it is a good thing I’m not planning to hurt him, is it not? Go on, Bumblebee.”

Bumblebee looked past Ultra Magnus, and Ratchet was shocked to see concern in his optics. 

“Move,” snarled Ultra Magnus. “Unless you want to get written up for disciplinary issues.”

Bumblebee turned. “Fine. Whatever. Don’t expect me to cover for you to Optimus. You hurt him, and I’ll _help_ Lord Prime beat the Pit out of you.”

Magnus’s optics narrowed. “I see.”

He waited until Bumblebee left before saying, “You seem to have allies, medic. So why did Optimus let you live?”

“The sparkling,” said Ratchet. “Hurt it and—”

“I already heard.” 

He pulled his audial away before Magnus’s fingers found it. 

Magnus lowered his hand. “Your predecessor was a good Autobot,” he growled. “I’ve read the files. You’re anything but.”

“From you, that’s a compliment.”

“One question, medic,” said Magnus, leaning in close. “Do you imagine that they’ll know if I hurt you? I don’t think Optimus will care much, as long as his precious Prime’s get is unharmed. Bumblebee seems to like you, but he won’t be able to tell.”

“Get to the point.”

“The point is that you should watch your glossa, little medic, because I am not patient with your impertinence.”

Ratchet shuddered. 

“I can be a powerful ally,” said Magnus. “Or I can hurt you in ways you can’t imagine, even as a medic. Agree to repair my hand, and spare yourself the difficulty.”

“I don’t—”

Claws pushed in under his chin, pricking sensitive wires. Ratchet reset his vocalizer. “What about Optimus?”

“You’re repairing one of his warriors,” said Magnus. “He’ll be grateful. Might even treat you better.”

_One of his warriors_. Another person to destroy the Autobots—the _real_ Autobots, not these abominations. 

“No,” said Ratchet. 

Magnus pinched, a pain disproportionate to the injury. Ratchet’s optics tried to produce cleanser fluid in protest; he shut those subroutines off. 

“It’s not as if you owe him loyalty,” said Magnus, low and seductive.

“But I owe my Autobots,” said Ratchet. “I won’t betray them. My Optimus—”

“Help me and buy their lives,” said Magnus. “I have no interest in this Cybertron.”

Ratchet reset his vocalizer again, his world filled with red optics.

Then Magnus jerked up, staring at something over Ratchet’s shoulder.

_“You_.” A snarl. 

Ratchet twisted to look as best he could. Dried energon on gray plating. A broken red forehead plate. Shredded wings, badly splinted long fingers. Red optics.

“Heh,” said Starscream. “Quaint setup you have here. Would it happen to include a medical kit?”

Magnus slammed Ratchet to the ground, kept him there with the elbow of one arm, raised the good one already transformed and aimed at Starscream. “What are you doing here?”

“Human saying,” said Starscream, folding his wings behind him. “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.” He smirked at Ratchet. “Shall we make a deal?”

 


	6. Chapter 6

“Oh be careful with him,” said Starscream, jerking his helm at Ratchet. “Megatron had him prisoner too. He sabotaged us, turned the Predacon against us, and alerted the Autobots to our position.”

Magnus’s optics darted to Ratchet’s restraints.

“While tied up,” said Starscream. “Why are you even keeping him around? I’d offline him.”

Magnus looked at Starscream. “He is uncooperative,” he said, the ion cannon not wavering.

“And impudent. And singlehandedly responsible for the destruction of the Decepticon cause.” Starscream clicked his glossa. “Far too dangerous to keep around.”

“Optimus requires him.”

“Doesn’t he always?” It was beyond Ratchet how Starscream could make a simple phrase like that sound utterly obscene, but he managed it. “Just like our version. Believe me, you’d be doing him a favor if you just killed the medic.”

The look he gave Ratchet was one of utter hatred. 

“No,” said Ultra Magnus. “He’s too useful.”

Starscream laughed. “That’s what Megatron said. It got him killed.”

Bumblebee skidded to a halt, blasters leveled at Starscream. Arcee followed close behind. 

“Take him into custody,” said Ultra Magnus. 

* * *

 

“They’re gone,” said Megatron. “They destroyed the groundbridge. We cannot tell where they have gone.”

Fowler pinched the bridge of his nose. “Anything I can do?”

“No,” said Megatron. “I’m not sure what we can do from here. I’ll keep search teams up, but chances are good they’re not even in this universe anymore.”

“They might be on Cybertron,” said Miko. 

“I would not be surprised,” said Megatron. “Optimus always hated Earth and would not return there if he had any other option.”

“We’ll alert Bumblebee and Magnus,” said Fowler. “Thanks, Megatron.”

“I only regret that I could not do more,” said Megatron, and switched the call off.

Miko couldn’t believe her ears. They were giving up? Just like that? With Ratchet’s life in the balance? Not on her watch! 

She was out of the room before Fowler even turned around. The Apex Armor was bulky, even with Raf’s anti-grav units on it, but she heaved it up and balanced it on her head, easiest way to carry it, and headed for the bridge. Halfway across the room, Agent Fowler interrupted her. “Miko, what are you doing?”

“My job,” she said, spinning around and walking backwards toward the bridge—still not shut down from the comm call.“I’m an liaison, yeah? So, doing my job. Seeya in a bit!”

She turned around again and pelted through the bridge before he could object. 

Out into the conference room again. “Hey, Megatron,” she yelled at him. “Megatron, wait up!”

Megatron turned. Miko took the Apex Armor down off her head, grinned as she saw his optics widen. “Hey,” she said. “We are not giving up like this. Come on, there’s some Auto-butt to kick.”

“Miko, you are being absurd.”

Miko pouted, which usually worked. It didn’t. He just folded his arms and frowned down at her. Mega-frown, still not as bad as an Opti-frown but still made you feel about two feet tall. 

“Nope,” she said, holding the Armor close. “Come on. Optimus wouldn’t leave him. Optimus would be sparkbroken that we left his sweetheart—sweetspark, whatever—in the hands of his evil twin. We can’t give up. Where’s Raf?”

“I wasn’t giving up—” started Megatron. 

“Sure,” said Miko. “Look, Bee and Mags have their hands full. Welcoming people back, rebuilding, all that scrap. They don’t have time or resources and what they especially don’t have is an army or a warship! So come on. Ratchet saved your butt once. Time to return the favor, right?”

Megatron looked kinda shifty. “You are correct. And it suits me far better than reconstruction.”

“Sure does. Come on! And I’ll be fine, I have the Armor.”

Megatron let out a long vent. 

“You can’t leave him in Optimus’s hands!”

“I would like to know where exactly you expect me to start looking.”

“Cybertron,” said Miko. “Everything starts on Cybertron, right?”

 


	7. Chapter 7

The shelter was erected, Starscream, shrilling indignation, dragged into it for interrogation. Magnus paused long enough to clamp a transformation inhibitor over the back of Ratchet’s neck, and they were gone.

They’d left him at the outskirts of the camp, huddled miserably around himself to ward off the cold. Magnus’s message was clear: cooperate, or stay out in the cold and the radiation. 

If Optimus didn’t return in the next few hours, he’d have to give in or risk harm to the sparkling. It wasn’t a choice.

Sometime later, Wheeljack, brought a cube of deeply substandard energon to Ratchet. Ratchet’s attempt to speak with him was met with silent indifference.

No sooner had Wheeljack returned to the shelter than Starscream emerged, free of the cuffs, ravaged wings proudly erect. “I’ll do what I can,” he called over his shoulder. 

It was getting dark. Starscream’s company was better than nothing. Ratchet didn’t want to stake his life on whether or Cybertron’s large fauna had yet to recover.

“Starscream—”

Starscream sauntered up to him and looked down, smirking.

“You know,” he purred, “the Ultra Magnuses are surprisingly suggestible. All I had to do was mention that I might be able to persuade you to be more helpful and here I am. Right next to you. Alone.” He spread his claws, awkward but still threatening with the splints on some of the joints. “And if they think I’m actually going to do any of that, well. That’s _their_ problem.”

He sprang. Ratchet yelled, tried to roll aside, but there were claws over his throat, grabbing, scratching. He bucked, twisted, but he was bound and Starscream was not. Scrabbling claws touched his major energon line. Ratchet pushed at him with bound hands, felt the claw turn, cutting edge against soft tubing. 

“Send Optimus my regards,” hissed Starscream. Ratchet shuttered his optics.

Roar of rage. Starscream shrieked. The weight lifted. Ratchet’s optics flew open.

Optimus had Starscream by the pedes, slammed him back and forth against the rubble, red optics blazing. He snarled, a long low background to Starscream’s panicked screams. 

With a desperate twist, Starscream threw himself free and leaped into alt, the blowback from his engines sending Optimus stumbling. 

Ratchet lay there and gasped.

“Did he harm you?” demanded Optimus, and knelt by Ratchet, hands already ghosting over his frame to check damage. 

“No,” said Ratchet. “No.”

Optimus touched his restraints. They dissipated, and Optimus pulled him in close. Ratchet curled against him and shook. 

“They left you without shielding,” said Optimus softly. “Magnus will pay for that. You and the sparkling, are you undamaged?”

“A few hours,” said Ratchet, and reset his vocalizer to prevent a sob, “a few hours won’t harm either of us.”

“Good,” said Optimus, and lifted him, cradling him as his own Optimus would have. Ratchet shuttered his optics and concentrated on calming. This was absurd. After Predaking had all but offlined him—

He jerked in shock and pain when Optimus lashed out with his field at Ultra Magnus and the others, still utterly silent. They fled the small structure they’d erected, and a hand smoothed over his backplates, Optimus murmuring an apology before placing him on the ground. 

“I am sorry we cannot offer a berth,” he said, very quiet. His hands lingered on Ratchet’s paldrons. 

That one apology, that one act of kindness, somehow hurt him worse than anything. Ratchet curled over himself and sobbed static. Optic cleanser routines onlined and would not offline, and he sank his helm into his hands, hating the feeling of red optics on him, red optics filled with _pity_ of all things—

“Ratchet.” A firmer touch, a hand under his chin. “Ratchet, do not hide.”

He looked up.

Optimus cupped his face with a hand, and in that moment, Ratchet saw past the red optics and pointed dentae and it seemed like it was _his_ Optimus looking at him with careful concern.

A digit brushed cleanser fluid from his face. “I’m here,” said Optimus. “It’s all right. I’m here. For you and for her.” He leaned forward. Lips touched Ratchet’s chevron. 

He should have said _don’t touch me_. _Don’t touch me, you’re not him_. But he was lonely, and leaned into Optimus’s touch, the sense of warmth and weight.

“I marvel at your strength, little medic,” said Optimus, and drew him close. “For all his weapons and devotion, my Ratchet did not possess its equal. You prove that love is no weakness, but a great strength. When our sparkling is born, you too shall raise her. Please, little medic, do not weep. You will be safe. She will be safe. All will be well.”

“All will be well,” he repeated, as if he were assuring himself. Ratchet pressed against him, leaned up. Optimus smiled an oh-so-familiar smile, and Ratchet’s spark twisted.

Optimus’s mouth pressed to his. He couldn’t tell who’d initiated it, a kiss incredibly gentle, turning hard and possessive and biting. Not right but not wrong—Ratchet pressed into it, wrapping his arms around Optimus’s neck. 

Broad hands ran over his dorsal plating. Fingers found seams, pressed, stroked. He reached for the places he knew, back of the helm, tips of the audials, and the huge frame above him shuddered in pleasure. He wanted this, he needed this, said as much. A chuckle, so familiar hands cradling him as he was pressed down against the ground. He spread himself, pedes planted far apart to accommodate Optimus’s bulk. His panel was open before Optimus settled over him, spike fully pressurized, valve slicked.

Optimus paused, touched him tentatively, one long finger tracing his valve, pressing against his anterior node. Ratchet whimpered. 

The finger pushed in, exploring him gently and insistently. Ratchet clutched at the metal under him, venting hard. Optimus stilled the jerk of his hips with a firm hand on the flat of his pelvis, moved in and out of him until Ratchet could bear it no longer. “More,” he managed, more static than anything else, pushing against the hand that held him still. 

The finger withdrew and he shook his helm, peered over his chassis. Optimus settled himself again, his panel open, unadorned purple and black spike erect. Ratchet whimpered again, cocking his hips up. 

Strong hands seized his hips. Optimus leaned over him, blunt heat pressed at his valve. Optimus was trembling with the effort of holding himself back.

“Move!” It was a snarl. 

Red optics flared. “I do not wish to harm you.”

Ratchet bucked his hips. “Move!”

Optimus shoved into him. Ratchet threw his helm back and keened. It hurt, but the sharp pain and the explosive pleasure registered as one and the same, and he met Optimus’s thrust, needing more of it, all of it, even the pain. 

The grip on his hips tightened, Optimus bringing all his weight to bear, and Ratchet barked static, processor reeling. It was good, it was good, it was everything he wanted, and he gave himself over to the bliss of not thinking, not feeling, only bucking and mewling with pleasure, the world gone, suspended. 

Optimus stiffened, stilled, and charge shocked through him, his own overload freezing his circuits and frame. 

They fell into recharge curled around each other, the newspark’s systems humming a counterpoint to their own. Optimus reached out to touch Ratchet’s abdomen, a small smile curling his faceplates. 

That small smile again made Ratchet’s spark ache, but this time, it did not threaten to tear him apart.


	8. Chapter 8

Late in the night he woke. Optimus murmured and shifted next to him. “Ratchet?”

Ratchet’s tanks lurched as his optics fixed on the purple arm around his waist. A sickbay, on an organic world, and a different Optimus, _his_ Optimus at his back, solid and reassuring, even as that familiar voice spat hatred at him.

_“But do you deserve anything more than that, little medic? I am sure you wonder about it, why your Prime tolerates your intimacy.”_

_“That’s hardly—” Ratchet restrained himself from saying anything further._

_“You have every reason,” said the Prime, softly. “How could you ever hope to be worthy of him? You’re a medic. Hardly worthy to tend to him, in civilized circumstances, let alone share spark and frame.”_

“Ratchet?” Concern, so like his Optimus. 

_“You’ve always been right,” said the other Prime. “No matter what he told you, that doubt has been his, too. He has wondered whether he betrays his duties, opening to you, and he has kept it from you because he does not wish to hurt you. He is very altruistic—but you know that, do you not?”_

“Why?” Ratchet managed.

“Why?” said Optimus, sitting up, and Ratchet tensed in anticipation of a blow. 

He could only imagine it was a sick joke, some revenge. What other reason would this Optimus want him, if not to hurt him? He’d made that clear in their last encounter, in the blow he’d dealt Optimus, the true Optimus, with words and the invasion of his very processor. 

“I revolted you,” said Ratchet. “For what Optimus and I shared.”

“No Prime should have such a relationship,” said Optimus. “It is wrong. But I am no longer a Prime and—” metal on metal, a movement, and Ratchet looked up to see Optimus staring at the wall of the shelter, “I could not bear to see you offline. Not again.”

Silence. Then, “Do you wish to know what really happened?” asked Optimus, quiet, and the hurt in his voice made Ratchet’s spark ache.

Ratchet remained silent and still, just looking at him. 

“What really happened when Megatron took the Matrix? He killed Ratchet. He killed Ratchet and threw him aside like so much refuse. And I was fool enough to try and use my spark against him. I had nothing else, he’d taken the Star Saber and my transformation protocols wouldn’t engage, I was too badly injured, and he’d just killed Ratchet in the name of a fleshling!” Wide red Optics met Ratchet’s. A long moment as Optimus visibly calmed himself.

“I struck at him with my spark,” he said. “The Matrix should have amplified it. It is something a Prime should be able to do. But instead it left me.”

He bowed his helm. “I thought I’d heard Primus,” he said, soft. “I thought He walked with me. Was all I heard echoes? Why would He do something like this to me? This cannot be a test! Not for me, my people are too badly hurt by that. No god could be so cruel! I should not doubt. I cannot doubt, not now, but so much has been taken! But if He is not testing me, what then?” A long ragged gasp. “I have given so much, I surrendered to His will even when I doubted and now this—am I spurned by the god I gave so much for? Is all I served a tissue of lies?”

Ratchet thought of the distant look in his Optimus’s eyes, the horrified knowledge that the mech he loved had died hours ago as he took the Allspark into himself, of that lone figure arching up, up, falling.

Without thinking, he reached for the mech next to him, pulled him close, running his hands over dorsal plating until the trembling calmed.

“Thank you,” said Optimus, and Ratchet curled against him as he had thousands of time before, pressed his helm to Optimus’s, clinging to the gentle comfort of that.

* * *

 

Ratchet was not sure what pulled him out of recharge. He turned over, opened his optics.

Optimus was not there. 

He pushed himself upright, winced as the sparkling protested the movement with a flurry of kicks. There was a cube of energon near him, generous but without nutritional supplements. Ratchet huffed a ventilation, resolved to have words with Optimus about that in the morning. The old saw about transfluid had marginal basis in fact, but certainly not enough to be a substitute for proper carrier nutrition.

It was then the noises registered, a constant irregular thumping, clangs, the shuffle of pedes, strained ventilations.

Ratchet took the cube in hand and went to the door. To his shock, he found it unsecured. He peered around it and froze. 

Optimus threw Magnus down, kicked him hard in the abdomen, trod on the reaching hand as Magnus tried to crawl away. The next blow caught him in the faceplate, throwing him on his back. 

He didn’t try crawling this time, only turned over onto his side and curled up, trying to shield himself. 

Optimus didn’t seem to care. He kicked Magnus’s exposed back several times, his only expression one of intense concentration. Then he looked up, met Ratchet’s horrified optics. 

Through the battlemask, Ratchet couldn’t see his smile, but he could see was the way Optimus’s optics tilted up, the way they did when Optimus was genuinely happy. 

Optimus bent, seized Magnus by an antenna, and pulled. Magnus lurched to his knees, a hiss of air escaping through broken dentae.

“Look at him,” said Optimus. 

Magnus’s good optic—the one not swollen with nanite activity—focused on Ratchet.

“He is under my protection,” said Optimus. He wrenched.

Magnus screamed, high and thin, a voice entirely different than his usual, and the antenna snapped off in Optimus’s hand. 

“Injure him again, neglect him again, and you die,” said Optimus, and dropped him. 

Magnus collapsed to hands and knees and retched. 

“Understood?”

“Yes, sir.”

“ _Understood?_ ”

Magnus’s face twisted, a string of oral lubricants and energon hanging from his intake. 

“Yes, my lord.”

“Good.” Optimus dropped the antenna. “You may ask Ratchet for repairs, if he is inclined to perform them after your recent behavior.”

Ratchet forced himself to set the drained cube down carefully, even though his hands shook. “Optimus,” he said, and Optimus turned, retracting the battlemask. 

“Yes?”

“Where is the medical kit?”

Optimus looked puzzled. “Behind you.”

He pinged Ratchet’s commsuite. _It might be better to let the sting of the beating linger before you repair him, so the lesson sticks._

_That’s not how I do things,_ Ratchet replied, and went to get the medical kit. 

Optimus was gone when he reemerged. Magnus was in the same place, huddled up around himself with the broken antenna cradled in his hands. 

He didn’t flinch when Ratchet touched him, though the effort it took was obvious. He shot Ratchet a look of absolute shock when he offlined the pain sensors in the most badly damaged areas. Throughout it, he was absolutely silent. 

Ratchet finished the repairs, stepped back. Magnus looked up at him, a flat, unreadable gaze. 

“I’ve examined your arm,” started Ratchet, but Magnus heaved himself to his pedes. 

“You’re all but a Decepticon,” he said, and turned away, Wheeljack and Bulkhead following in his wake.

 

* * *

 

The Apex Armor did not stop you from getting tired.

Miko really wanted to just stand still and pant but no, Megatron was still going, and she was going to keep up with him or die trying. Fortunately, they’d managed to locate all the areas with energon signatures, and they were small enough to examine on foot.

They’d elected not to tell Ultra Magnus. The last thing they needed was the evil Autobots getting alerted to their discovery because the good Autobots started acting like ‘a kicked anthill’, to quote Agent Fowler. Besides, no one wanted to try to talk Ultra Magnus into playing nice with a Megatron. Even Agent Fowler was pretty sure it wouldn’t work.

Megatron paused in a small depression and looked at Miko. A smile lifted his mouth.

“We’ll be heading back soon,” he said, as if he’d read her mind. 

“Oh sure, good, if you’re tired,” she said. 

He grinned. “Of course.”

“Wait,” said Miko. “I think I saw something move.”

“Where?” 

“Over there, by the rubble?”

Megatron looked. “It’s Starscream,” he said after a moment.

“Ours or—”

“Not ours.” His cannon hummed online. Miko set herself in a defensive stance. 

Starscream came over the rise at a fraction of his usual speed, transforming and collapsing into a strutless heap at Megatron’s pedes. Megatron took a step backward.

“Wow,” said Miko. “You look rough.”

Starscream ignored her. “Master! Please, I need your help. The Autobots—”

Then he actually looked up, at the squared blocky shoulders, at the helm that no longer swept down into two points, but squared off at a level with Megatron’s jaw, the blunt fingers and broader, blockier chest, the glyphs along the armguards, the red where there should have been purple.

“Oh,” he said, an evaluating light in his optics. Miko could practically see a Starscream Plan forming, just from his expression. “Now aren’t you something.”

Megatron bent and drew Starscream to his pedes. Starscream stumbled theatrically, leaning heavily against him. Miko rolled her eyes. She’d seen the _cheerleaders_ do better than that. 

“You’re injured,” said Megatron.

“Yes,” said Starscream. “Autobots. They captured me. I only barely managed to escape with my spark. That Ultra Magnus—” He shuddered delicately, ravaged wings trembling. 

“Autobots,” said Megatron. 

“Yes, but all wrong. Claws and red optics, and they had an Optimus with them.” Starscream leaned harder on Megatron, staring up at him. Miko made a face. Worse than Sierra. “I thought he was _dead_.”

“Yeah, we thought you were dead too,” said Miko. 

Starscream shot her a poisonous look.

“Did they have Ratchet with them?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact they did,” said Starscream. “I know where they are, but in my current state I don’t know how far I can make it. Optimus tried to offline me.”

“We will repair you,” said Megatron. 

“Oh, thank you,” said Starscream. 

“Soundwave, groundbridge,” said Megatron, and after a moment a swirling green vortex opened. 

Starscream tried a step toward it. “I don’t know if I can walk much further,” he said, looking up at Megatron, who obligingly scooped him up in a bridal carry. 

“You are so totally faking,” said Miko to herself, and followed. 

 


	9. Chapter 9

There was nothing to do but sit and wait. He didn’t even have something to throw against the wall. Ratchet settled for glaring at it, arms folded tightly over himself. 

He tried not to think about what he’d done. 

_“If anything happens to me_ ,” Optimus had said—and it had been less of an _if_ than a _when_ at that point, _“please. Do not spend your life in mourning for me. Do not feel guilty for loving again.  Ratchet, will you promise me that?”_

He had promised.

Optimus would never have approved. Not of this. Not of retracting his plating to a mech who was everything Optimus was not, cruel and cold and uncaring.

_But he’s not uncaring, is he?_

Ratchet sank his helm in his hands.

There was a tap at the door, and Bumblebee’s head and shoulders poked into the shelter. “Hey, Doc-bot, can we talk?”

“It’s not like I have anything else to do.” This Bumblebee looked so much like the other Bumblebee, but Ratchet’s processor quickly provided him with an example to the contrary. 

****_“Hey, is this the same ‘Con from before? You put his leg back on.”_

_“Yes, I did. Now go away.”_

_“I guess you didn’t appreciate me taking all that trouble to remove it, then. See you around, Doc!”_

“Arcee’s here too,” said Bumblebee, stepping aside to let the little purple femme past. “I don’t think you get how nasty things are right now, doc. Don’t worry, Magnus and his bullies are off licking their wounds.”

“Probably plotting,” said Arcee.

“Yeah, make that definitely,” said Bumblebee. “Optimus shouldn’t have beat Mags up like that. Wrong time. And the last touch with you? Yeah, Mags’s pride isn’t gonna take that.”

“What do you mean?”

“There’s a split coming,” said Arcee. “We’re not gonna help Magnus. He’s a real piece of work.”

“So are the Wreckers,” said Bumblebee. “They do the stuff most decent Autobots would refuse. Frying planets.”

“Torturing traitors.”

“What they did that one time to Knockout and Breakdown—”

“And Magnus is the worst of them. We want nothing to do with that. Optimus, he’s got his problems—lost the Matrix, after all, didn’t kill Megatron, too soft on Starscream—but you’re not going to wake up strapped to a slab with Wheeljack grinning at you with him around. Sure he might beat the scrap out of you when you frag up, but that’s just it—”

“—it’ll be because you fragged up, not because Bulk got bored.”

“I heard them laughing about what happened to Smokescreen,” said Arcee. “After hours. They thought it was hilarious.”

“Optimus thinks you’re important,” said Bumblebee. “So, we’re gonna protect you. Way better than letting Magnus have you. And…” He paused, looked down. “You’re nice. You offline sensors when you don’t have to.”

“Bee’s point is, we’ve got your back,” said Arcee. “And don’t help Magnus. He’ll throw it back in your face. He probably knew what Starscream was gonna try. He didn’t think you were gonna help him, so it wasn’t any paint off him.”

Bumblebee’s helm jerked up. “Slag. They’re coming back.”

* * *

 

“And they’re camped here,” said Starscream, tapping claws on the map. “Optimus, Arcee and Bumblebee, and Ultra Magnus and the Wreckers—Bulkhead and Wheeljack.”

“Magnus and Wheeljack?” said Knockout, helm jerking up, optics wide.

“Permission denied,” said Megatron, still looking down at the map. 

“But Megatron—”

“I am not risking you in battle,” said Megatron. 

“But for _Breakdown!_ ”

Megatron looked at Knockout. “We need a medic,” he said. “Not another soldier bent on revenge.”

“Then what about me? Megatron, you promised.”

“Not like this,” said Megatron. “Enough, Knockout.”

“No, not enough—”

“Crankshaft, Gearshift,” said Megatron, not raising his voice, “confine Knockout to the medical bay. We need him aboard the _Nemesis_ to treat casualties.” He looked at Knockout. “You are our only medic,” he said. “If we lose you, Magnus and the Wreckers win.”

Knockout looked down, then turned on his heel and marched out, the Vehicons following him. 

“Tight ship you run here,” purred Starscream. “Tell me, why is our good doctor so very intent on revenge?”

“That is Knockout’s to tell you and not mine,” said Megatron. “You are sure it’s here?”

“Yes, absolutely,” said Starscream. “And might I make a request? Might I speak with Ratchet when you bring him aboard? We have so very much to catch up on.”

Megatron looked down at Miko, who shook her head. 

“Such as what?” Megatron asked.

“Recent events,” said Starscream. 

“Very well,” said Megatron. “In the meantime, you will be confined to the brig.” He smiled like a shark. “For security reasons, of course.” He gestured to a group of Vehicons, who converged on the protesting Starscream. “Soundwave, if you could accompany them? Commander Starscream, if you would remain.”

“I really don’t like him,” said the other Starscream ( _Good_ Starscream, as Miko had begun thinking of him). 

“Duh,” said Miko. “He’s your evil twin. And he’s definitely plotting something. You can’t let him near Ratchet.”

“Of course not,” said Megatron. “But that seems to be his primary motivation. So he doesn’t need to learn that quite yet.” He turned to Starscream. “Get the Eradicons ready. The sooner we attack, the better Ratchet’s chances are.”

Starscream nodded. “Of course.” The end of his intake turned up. “After all, it’s about time we paid him back for last time.”

“Last time?” said Miko. 

“He saved Starscream’s spark,” said Megatron.

“I was doing perfectly well on my own!” said Starscream. “Though not very pleasantly. Eradicons will be mustered in the next—” He glanced at Miko and obviously changed the time unit he was using, “thirty minutes.”

“Good,” said Megatron. He turned and left the room, helm bowed.

“What’s his deal?” asked Miko.

Starscream ex-vented. “He can’t leave Optimus online this time, not after this,” he said. 

* * *

 

Ultra Magnus made his move before Optimus returned. 

Ratchet was sitting in the shelter when he heard blasterfire, peered through the viewing port to see Arcee run past, firing at Bulkhead. Wheeljack stepped in front of her—she transformed and flipped over his head and out of sight.

Bumblebee shrieked. A moment later, his sparking chassis skidded into view, fetched up against a boulder and lay still. 

Ratchet cast around for something, anything, to use as a weapon. The transformation protocols in his arms would not come online, thanks to the claw on the back of his helm. He snarled frustration, but there was nothing save an empty energon cube at his pedes. He picked it up anyway. 

The door burst in. Arcee skidded to a halt, reached around the back of his neck and wrenched the claw off. “Go,” she snapped. “Drive, slag you!”

A bolt clipped her shoulder. She grunted, staggered back, and Ultra Magnus shouldered his way into the room. 

“Stand down,” he said. “We only need Ratchet.”

Arcee looked from Ratchet to Magnus and back. “How do I know you won’t just offline me?”

“His word as a Wrecker,” said Wheeljack from behind Magnus. Bulkhead laughed uproariously. 

Arcee glanced down, winglets drooping. She lowered her blasters. “I suppose—” she started. 

Magnus reached for her, and she discharged both blasters directly into his abdomen, leaped, kicked off from his helm as he doubled over, and hit the two other Wreckers in the doorway mid-transformation. Wheeljack fired after her, swore. 

“You alright, boss-bot?” asked Bulkhead, shoving forward and putting his hands on Magnus’s shoulders.

Magnus managed a jerky nod. “Surficial damage, soldier.”

Ratchet brought out his blades.

“You don’t want to do that, sweetspark,” said Wheeljack, shouldering forward. “We don’t care much about your sparkling. You don’t want it _damaged_ , now do you?”

Ratchet froze. 

“Come on, nice and easy, there’s a good bot,” purred Wheeljack, moving forward. His field brushed Ratchet’s, assured and probing. Ratchet took a step back. 

“Can it, Jackie, you’re scaring him. Besides, Prime really cares about the sparkling.”

“I don’t think it’s just the sparkling if he’s fragging him,” said Wheeljack, and smirked. “We’re not gonna hurt you, Doc, not until we’ve got what we wanted outta Prime. Can’t make any promises after that.”

He circled Ratchet, who turned to keep him in his field of view. “You gonna stand there all day, Doc? Not flattering at all with your frame.”

“Don’t call me Doc.”

Wheeljack laughed. “What’d you prefer, _sunshine_?”

“Enough,” said Magnus, and an arm clamped over Ratchet. He struck back with the blades, heard Magnus grunt with pain and the arm loosen, but then Wheeljack was there, struck him hard across the faceplate and trapped his arms against his sides., Wheeljack’s ventilations gusted hot across his faceplate. 

“Just like that, sweetspark, nice and easy.” 

Ratchet snarled and struggled, which just made Wheeljack laugh.

“Keep it professional, Jackie. He’s not a ‘con.”

Wheeljack pouted. “Take all the fun out of it, why don’t ya.”

“Enough,” said Magnus. “Optimus is here.”

Outside, the clatter of transformation.


	10. Chapter 10

Ultra Magnus seized Ratchet, put claws to his throat and dragged him outside. Optimus, ion cannon out, saw them and froze.

“On your knees,” Magnus said to Optimus. “Now. Hands behind your helm.”

Optimus hesitated.

The claws dug in. “Do you want to watch him die, Optimus?” said Ultra Magnus. “It doesn’t matter to _me.”_

“Why?” whispered Optimus. 

“Do you think I forgot Garrus-9, Optimus? Do you think you bought me off by letting me kill Prowl? Because you didn’t, and I _know_ where those orders came from. The Wreckers were too powerful, weren’t they. They were scaring you. They were making the base of the Prime’s throne unsteady. So you sent them to die. You sent _my people_ to die.” 

Optimus’s optics darted to Ratchet, to the door. 

“I know why, too. You needed dirty work done, we did it. Even when it went against your religious strictures, we did it, and you wanted to dispose of us for that. Because we’d acted lustfully and wrathfully, was that not it? But you needed someone to do that, Optimus. You wanted to kill us for following orders.”

“I never ordered you—”

“You put us in such a position that we had to. There was no other way that could be taken.

“And you weren’t even a Prime to start with. The Matrix _left_ you, and yet you still presumed to abuse us, beat us into submission. No more, Optimus. Get down.”

Optimus snarled and brought out his ion canon, fired at Ultra Magnus, who flung Ratchet aside as he ducked. Ratchet rolled, scrambled to cover. 

Bulkhead and Ultra Magnus converged on Optimus, who switched to his blades a moment too late. Bulkhead tackled him, bore him to the ground, Ultra Magnus following behind him. 

Something in Ratchet’s spark wrenched. He couldn’t bear it, that familiar frame helpless and struggling, no matter the color—

He lunged forward, blades snapping out. 

A hand caught his. “Going somewhere, Doc?”

He whirled, stabbed at the smirking face, and Wheeljack released him, stumbling back with an arm up to shield his optics. “You little—”

Ratchet transformed, threw himself away from Wheeljack. A blaster bolt struck the ground by his back right tire. He skidded, vision narrowed to the flailing purple and black arm—

The rev of a high powered engine behind him, and Wheeljack was on top of him. He came to a stop. The barrel of Wheeljack’s blaster nudged his cab. “Transform and I won’t fire, Doc.”

Ratchet transformed, staggered against Wheeljack as the Wrecker moved away, reached for the Wrecker to catch himself. Wheeljack’s expression twisted into a pleased leer—

Ratchet brought out his blades again and fell with his full weight against Wheeljack, the scalpel grating up and in.

Wheeljack’s expression slackened, optics flickering. “How—”

Ratchet pulled the blade free, turned, heard Wheeljack slump to the ground, the sound of systems offlining permanently. His tanks lurched, but he forced himself forward, because Optimus was still fighting, a flailing pede catching Ultra Magnus in the temple. 

“Get off him!” he yelled, but Ultra Magnus took no notice, lunged forward over Optimus’s prone frame, going for the spark. 

But Bulkhead’s helm jerked up, his optics going wide. “Boss!” 

That stopped Magnus, and he turned to follow Bulkhead’s gaze, sword at Optimus’s chestplates. His face went slack and shocked.

Ratchet looked as well, just in time to see Megatron and the second division of Eradicons top the rise.

_Red,_ thought Ratchet, the relief like a blow. _They’re on our side._

Behind him, Ultra Magnus moved.

Crunch of breaking armor. 

A cry, Optimus, shocked.

Ratchet turned in time to see Magnus and Bulkhead fling themselves free of Optimus, Optimus reach up to touch the wound in his chest with an expression of disbelief even as his optics flared and faded.

Through it, Ratchet could see his spark flicker, gutter—

He was in motion, came to his knees next to Optimus, reached, desperate to do something, anything.

Optimus’s helm lolled back, dark optics unseeing, even as Ratchet’s hands found the override ports to access his spark.


	11. Chapter 11

They found Ratchet with the other Optimus cradled in his arms. Not sobbing, just staring with a terrible blankness that unnerved even Miko.

Megatron guided him to his pedes, all but carrying him. Ratchet’s optics were still fixed on Optimus’s frame. 

“Not both of you,” he said, so quietly that Miko almost missed it, and allowed Megatron to lead him away. 

Miko and Starscream looked down at the corpse. 

“Creepy,” said Miko, very quietly. She wanted to sound more herself, but something about seeing Ratchet like that…

“He was worse when he was alive,” said Starscream, jerked a thumb at the Eradicons. “Come on, let’s get him through the bridge.” He glanced at Miko. “We don’t want any doubt as to whether or not he’s dead, after all.”

“Commander Starscream,” said one of the Eradicons, some distance away, “Someone offlined Wheeljack.”

Starscream froze. “Are you sure he’s offline?”

“Yes, Commander,” said the Eradicon. 

“Get him as well. We don’t want him coming back to life.”

Muffled laughter at that.

“Now what?” said Miko. 

“We make sure everyone knows,” said Starscream.

* * *

 

Megatron may have attempted to ensure Optimus’s remains were treated with dignity. That didn’t stop the Eradicons from throwing a party that lasted three days.

Ratchet was grateful for the quarters he was given; Megatron’s own, far aft and where the sounds of the celebration could not reach him. During the first day or so, he hadn’t the wit to ask where Megatron was. 

It turned out Megatron simply moved into the barracks for his off-shift and spent the rest of the time on the bridge. 

Ratchet curled back into a ball and returned to despising himself.

He hadn’t been able to save Optimus. But it wasn’t just that. He hated himself for even caring. He hated himself for what he had done. He shouldn’t have had a moment of compunction about that monster. What that version of Optimus had done to his counterpart, Ratchet’s _bondmate_ , for Primus’s sake, should have been reason enough.

But instead he was here, hurting, feeling as if there was a great hole in the universe that even such a cruel and flawed creature had somehow filled. 

_Was it simply because they sounded alike?_ he wondered. _Was it simply because he looked like Optimus? Am I that much a fool?_

Worst, sometimes they would blend together in his memory, his Optimus with red optics, that other Optimus smiling at him over a datapad, looking down at the children with careful consideration.

Three days later, and Megatron returned. He’d stopped by briefly to say that the _Nemesis_ was in orbit around Earth, in consideration for Ratchet’s health. Now he entered bearing a cube of enriched energon. Knockout’s job.

Ratchet looked miserably up at him.

Megatron walked over to the recharge slab, put the cube down on it, and leaned against the bulkhead, not looking at Ratchet.

After a long time, he said, “I never stopped loving him either. Even when I knew I should not.”

His optics lifted, met Ratchet’s. 

“I am sorry,” he said. “Losing one’s bondmate once is bad enough.”

Ratchet looked away. “I never should have—”

“Neither should I,” said Megatron. 

“You don’t understand.”

“Perhaps I do not. What I do understand is not allowing a single incident to define you.” 

“Magnus is still out there,” said Ratchet.

“As is Bulkhead,” said Megatron. “I have a feeling, however, that their counterparts will have little trouble dealing with them.”

“Hmph,” said Ratchet, and accepted the cube.

He made it to the bridge some time after that. Megatron turned from the viewscreen to look at him, a surprisingly kind smile quirking his intake. 

“You repaired it,” said Ratchet.

“Just the viewscreen,” said Megatron. “Soundwave fell in love with the auxiliary bridge and insists on running things from there. But this suffices for my purposes.”

“I was wondering if I could take on a shift in the medical bay,” said Ratchet.

“Of course,” said Megatron. “There is little enough to do these days, and Knockout will be glad of the advice.”

“He seems competent.”

“Not in obstetrics.” Megatron grinned. “Your arrival galvanized Knockout to a flurry of physical exams. A notable percentage of the ship’s complement is expecting. You are not the only reason to spend some time away from Cybertron, at least until the radiation levels return to normal. Not too long, Soundwave says.”

“I should return to my Earth,” said Ratchet.

“Your Agent Fowler placed you on indefinite leave,” said Megatron. “You may stay as long as you like.”

“Thank you,” said Ratchet, and meant it.

Later again, and Megatron himself turned up in the medical bay with a minor complaint, a twisted cable. Knockout was off checking someone over, so Ratchet took care of it. 

“Thank you, Ratchet,” said Megatron afterward, and Ratchet froze, because something in that sounded like Optimus, _his_ Optimus.

Megatron saw the change on his faceplates, apologized, and fled the room. 

“The Matrix can be insidious,” he said later. “Sometimes, it’s hard to tell what is me, and what is memory. I am sorry.”

That night found them taking their evening cube together on the defunct bridge. 

“I should have fought,” said Ratchet, looking into his. “I should have resisted them more. Then I wouldn’t have—” 

His voice cracked at that, and he drank to hide his face. 

“Why?” said Megatron. “Not all of us can be strong all the time, Ratchet.”

Ratchet snorted. “You can.”

“No,” said Megatron, and put his cube down. “I cannot. I was not.”

Ratchet drank again, so he would not have to ask the next question. 

Megatron glanced at him. “After I lost Miko,” he said. “I was captured. I wouldn’t have been, if I had fought, but I hadn’t the spark for it.”

Ratchet reached for him, instinct, and Megatron placed his hand palm up and squeezed Ratchet’s, very gently. 

“Knockout tells me what happened to me after that was not my fault,” he said. “But I know that, had I fought, it would not have happened. Starscream and Soundwave would not have pulled me away from the Wreckers half-online. We would not have lost the two Vehicons we did that day.” He placed his hand over his chestplates. “And I am not the first Prime to have found himself in such a situation. Sometimes we cannot fight, Ratchet, and there is no point to blaming ourselves for it. Sometimes it is the only thing you can do. And sometimes it is the thing that takes more courage.”

Ratchet looked at him. “You don’t sound like your counterpart.”

Megatron’s intake quirked. “Some days, I do not think I sound like myself,” he said. “I would like to think that fighting is always possible. I would like to think that my duty is always to fight, to protect myself and those under my care, that that experience is shameful. But it would be a lie.”

“And Primus forbid the Lord of the Decepticons tell a lie.”

Megatron snorted. “That was, after all, Optimus’s name for us. He never understood that lying is a survival tool, when one is oppressed. Now, we are free. We have the luxury of truth.”

He looked at the green blue planet beneath their pedes. “No. Fighting is not always possible. I would that it were.”

They sat in silence until Ratchet was called to the medical bay.

 


	12. Chapter 12

A year passed. Ratchet kept on in the medical bay, even as his chestplates expanded and his frame ached at the extra structural strain. There was no need to go off duty because of it, and there had been a mining accident earlier that week, so his services were needed. Even if he had to stop and puff for atmosphere rather more frequently than was ideal. 

Indeed, he was on duty when the emergence protocols activated, the sudden numbness of every pain sensor in the pelvis off-lining at once sending him reeling against a cabinet. 

It was just Megatron’s bad luck that he happened to be in the medical bay at the time, and that Knockout had at least three cases more urgent than a carrier going into early emergence. For the most part, Ratchet was capable of monitoring himself, even if Knockout insisted Megatron remain with him, and came by to check periodically.

Cybertronian birth tended to be fairly painless, thanks to the offlining of the sensors, but not pretty. Megatron got a strange, stiff look on his face, given that he had a rather better view of things than anyone else, but to his credit followed Ratchet’s instructions perfectly well. 

Even if he quite nearly lost the contents of his tanks when the pelvic girdle transformed to allow the sparkling to pass through. (“Frames aren’t supposed to _move_ like that,” Ratchet heard him say, rather faintly, to Knockout. “Yes they are,” said Knockout, and went back to business.)

It was a fairly routine birth, and at the end, Megatron—spattered in fluids he probably didn’t even know the _names_ of—held up a small bundle of squalling protoform with a grin as if _he’d_ been the one undergoing emergence.

Ratchet let that pass. 

Ratchet named her Asclepius. Megatron was instantly smitten. 

Asclepius was a gangly mess of mismatched parts at first, a rotund little thing with long arms and legs, her paint a clash of dark blue and orange. The orange darkened down to a duller, redder color. Growing into her gangling limbs took longer. Her first instar was a mess, and got worse once she learned to walk. She was always getting into things or knocking things over—mostly due to her unusual height and an inability to manage her limbs. 

She’d also inherited her Sire’s original absent-mindedness, and for Ratchet it was a bittersweet reminder of a young archivist—as well as an unending source of anxiety, as he feared what she might blunder into when his back was turned. 

Megatron found all of it endearing, the gangling limbs, the widespread chaos, the tendency to gently wander into danger. In her first instar, she spent as much time in a sling on his back as she did on her actual carrier’s.

Sometime before Asclepius underwent her first molt, they captured Ultra Magnus. 

“He was wounded in the process,” said Megatron, looking down at Ratchet, his demeanor at odds with the sling over his back and the faint sounds of Asclepius burbling to herself behind his words. “I cannot ask Knockout. Will you…?”

Ratchet’s tank lurched unpleasantly. 

“Yes,” he said. “I understand.”

Ultra Magnus glared at him with utter hatred when he entered the room. Ratchet pretended not to notice. 

He tidied the tools and opened his scanner, checked Magnus for diseases, then leaned in to examine the wound.

“Are you fragging him yet?” said Magnus.

Ratchet froze, then forced himself to move normally again. He didn’t respond.

“Megatron,” said Magnus. “Are you fragging him yet, Doctor?”

“No,” said Ratchet. “I’m tending to a wound on a prisoner who is asking rude questions about my personal life.”

“It’s how you do things, isn’t it?” 

Now, Ratchet looked at him. “Is there a point to this?”

Magnus looked at him, sullen, and said nothing.

“I’ll take that as a no.”

“You had your sparkling.”

“Yes.”

“Where is it?”

“I am not telling you,” Ratchet said. “Now shut up or I’ll put a mouth clamp on you.”

Magnus looked at the ceiling. 

The door slid open. 

Ratchet resolutely ignored it. 

“Doctor?” Ultra Magnus’s voice, and it was utterly strange hearing that voice from both places. 

Ratchet kept working. “What are you doing here?”

“My team brought him in. He and Bulkhead’s counterparts were causing a great deal of damage.”

The prisoner’s mouth twisted in disgust. “Traitor.”

Ultra Magnus gave him a very long look, raised one eyebrow deliberately. 

“You’re working with Megatron,” said his counterpart. 

“We have a formal alliance, in most part due to Ratchet’s efforts,” said Ultra Magnus. “It is highly beneficial to both sides. What is his condition, Doctor?”

“Good enough to be making rude remarks,” said Ratchet, stepping back. It had been a clean gash, deep as it was, and easily welded. “He’ll be fine.”

“Why would you repair me?” said the prisoner. “Everyone knows Megatron will simply execute me the moment your backs are turned.”

“I will remain for the trial,” said Ultra Magnus. “Megatron wants an outside observer to ensure it is fair. Will he require further treatment?”

“Basic monitoring,” said Ratchet. “No more.”

“Good. Thank you, Doctor.” Magnus paused in the door. “And for your information, we have taken custody of the Starscream from our universe. Wheeljack and Bulkhead escorted him back earlier today. He is not a threat to you here.”

Ratchet looked down, his spark lurching. “Thank you,” he said after a long moment. 

Magnus glanced at his counterpart, then at Ratchet. “One other thing. Knockout has proved himself throughly capable of filling your position, and Bumblebee replaced you in your position on Earth last week. If you have no desire to return, there is no requirement or duty you need fulfill. The choice is entirely yours.”

And before Ratchet could respond, he was gone. 


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Christmas! (Or holiday of your choice!) Here's my present: have a finished fic with a heaping helping of smut to horrify the relatives.

It was a fair trial. They even appointed external judges, neutrals newly returned to Cybertron.

And so in the face of the damning evidence given by a wooden-faced Knockout, by Eradicon after Eradicon, by Megatron and by Ratchet himself, it ended with Magnus’s counterpart in indefinite spark isolation.

It didn’t make anyone feel any better. 

Ratchet sat and talked with Knockout for hours afterward, ended up giving him a recharge aid and setting Starscream to keep an optic on him. 

Instead of celebrating, the Vehicons and Eradicons got sullenly, stubbornly drunk. Magnus might have been punished, but the wounds dug up by the trial were too deep. Fortunately, there was no Cybertronian equivalent to human alcohol poisoning. 

But Ratchet kept his comms on anyway. Cybertronians were just as prone to inebriation-assisted idiocy as humans.

He hurt. He hurt deeply, but he didn’t have the luxury of grieving as the Vehicons or Knockout did. Neither did Megatron. 

He left a drowsy Asclepius in Soundwave’s care, thanking him as he settled her into her berth and tucked insulators around her. Her optics fluttered open, and she yawned with a tiny squeak that made him smile, and grabbed at his hand. He spent a while standing there with Asclepius clutching his finger and talking to Soundwave, more than happy for the time. Asclepius had spent most of the day in the care of the Eradicon parents. The trial was not something she needed to learn about. 

She dropped into recharge, chittering softly in her sleep, and Ratchet took his leave of Soundwave, then gathered up two cubes and headed for the main bridge.

Megatron stood there, looking out at Cybertron. He turned when Ratchet entered the room and inclined his helm. 

Wordless, Ratchet handed him one of the cubes. He accepted with a crooked smile. 

“It’s been a while,” he murmured. “Since we had time to ourselves, that is.”

“Thank Soundwave,” said Ratchet. “He volunteered to babysit.”

“Indeed,” said Megatron. “I wanted to talk to you in person.” 

Ratchet hesitated. “About what?”

Megatron bowed his helm. “A personal matter. Tell me, Ratchet, would you consider us friends?”

Ratchet looked at him a long time, remembering. Megatron that first time, staring at him in collected disbelief. Megatron when he’d arrived, distraught and all but incoherent, having left Optimus in that other Megatron’s hands, at his mercy. Megatron listening calmly as he begged for help, to cross the barriers of their universe back home to save Optimus’s spark, agreeing and throwing his people into the battle to save the counterpart of his worst enemy.

Megatron speaking to him calmly of horrors past, offering absolution Ratchet hadn’t known he needed. Megatron staring over his pelvic girdle with sympathetic horror. 

Megatron stalking back and forth across the bridge with Asclepius in a sling on his back, singing old Kaoni work songs in a surprisingly melodious bass rumble. 

“Yes,” he said.

“I consider you a friend as well,” Megatron said. “Always.”

Ratchet arched an optic ridge. “Always? Even when I first arrived?”

Megatron laughed. “Poetic license.”

Ratchet smiled a very little.

“Another question,” said Megatron. “Do you intend to stay?”

That was easier. “I have nothing to return to.”

There was a long silence. Ratchet fidgeted with his energon. Megatron stared down at his with fixed intensity. Then he reset his vocalizer. “I hoped you would say that,” he said. “Deeply hoped. Ratchet—” a quick sidelong almost scared glance, then, all at once, “I adored your Optimus. He was everything the Orion I knew could have been—he was the realization of all I had imagined and loved in Orion, with none of the selfish petty cruelties that Orion fell victim to. You two were sparkbonded, so my regard of your Optimus never was more than distant. But to hear of his passing—Ratchet, I am sorry, and I am sorry I did not offer you refuge sooner.”

Ratchet just looked at him. 

“My regard for you has only grown with time,” said Megatron. “And I would like to offer you support—”

“Offer me support? If what you did earlier for me wasn’t support, what—”

Megatron held up a hand. “I would like to offer you support in your grief, however you will permit me.”

Their optics met, Megatron hesitant, Ratchet shocked. 

“With your permission,” said Megatron. He placed his energon aside and offered his hands to Ratchet, palms up. “Ratchet. Might I court you?”

Words did not come. Ratchet’s intake worked—

—and his commsuite went mad, reports of a medical emergency. From the look on his faceplate, Megatron’s had just done the same.

* * *

 

Six overcharged Vehicons, the functioning inter-dimensional groundbridge, and one exceedingly unamused Predacon later, Ratchet had the distinct and rare feeling that he’d gotten the easy end of things. Most of the injuries were incurred in the fall—they’d managed to open the groundbridge some distance above the ground—and most were minor. 

Megatron was the one who got to explain the whole thing to Predaking, starting with his existence and working from there.

It was not easy. 

For one thing, their greeting coming out of the portal was a snarl and a mass of metal hurling itself at Megatron. He went down with a roar. 

Ratchet, checking one of the unconscious Vehicons, started upright. “Predaking, no!”

They ignored him, a spinning clash of metal on metal. Ratchet, determining that none of the Vehicons were in critical condition, lurched forward. He’d had enough personal experience with Predaking’s wrath, and his spark turned over when Megatron shouted with surprise and pain. If he didn’t intervene— “PREDAKING!”

Predaking heard him, paused with the flames glowing in his chest and turned his beast-mode’s head to look at Ratchet, optics slitted. Megatron, pinned to the ground by a massive talon, cannon raised, turned his helm to look at Ratchet as well. 

“That’s not Megatron,” Ratchet said. 

Predaking’s expression was one of complete disbelief. 

“ _I’m_ tolerating him,” said Ratchet. 

Megatron looked abruptly as if he wanted to laugh. 

“Look at him. He hasn’t been reformatted. His optics are blue. He’s smaller. He’s not the Megatron you know.”

Megatron made a face as Predaking leaned in to look at him.

Predaking withdrew, then transformed, eliciting a gasp from Megatron. 

“You’re right,” Predaking said to Ratchet. “He is different.”

Megatron tried to move. Predaking kept him in place by the simple expedient of putting a pede on his chest. “I require an explanation for the invasion of my territory.”

“They’re all overcharged and got access to the wrong groundbridge,” said Ratchet, gesturing to the Vehicons. “We came to reclaim them. Let him up, Predaking. I need him to help me carry this lot back to sickbay.”

“They were trespassing.”

“They were _lost._ Do you _want_ a fight, Predaking? Because no one’s in a mood to give you one.”

“You are being remarkably protective of Decepticons.”

“They’re different Decepticons,” said Ratchet, feeling stupid even as he said it. 

“Are you familiar with the multiverse theory?” Megatron put in, sounding as if he were trying to be helpful. 

Apparently, Predaking was. He shuttered his optics, looked back at Megatron and removed his pede. Megatron staggered to his pedes and grinned. “I apologize for the inadvertent trespassing,” he said. “I assure you it was unintentional, and shall not be repeated. Ratchet has told me that he owes his life to you, and I am honored to meet you in person.”

Predaking gave him a look that was dubious in the extreme. “Tell me of this universe of yours,” he said, then, with a sidelong glance at Ratchet, “and how you met the Autobot medic.”

Ratchet let out a long exvent, and commed Shockwave to come help move the overcharged Vehicons. It was clear he wasn’t about to get much help from Megatron. 

* * *

 

“You’re a mess,” he told Megatron later, as he attended to a multitude of minor welds. “An utter mess. Did you two continue tussling after I left?”

“Yes,” said Megatron, completely unabashed, grinning broadly. “He quite surprised me on a number of occasions. It was delightful. We’ll have to do it again sometime soon.”

“Not with these injuries you won’t. Stop flinching and hold still.” Ratchet swabbed the cut in question. “Minor, won’t even need welding. Can you move your plating aside here? You’re leaking under it.”

Megatron hesitated  a moment, complied, moving his abdominal armor to expose protoform.

Ratchet froze. 

The gouge one of Predaking’s claws had torn was a fairly minor injury, for all the energon it had produced. Ratchet wasn’t even sure it would require a weld. No, what had caught his attention was the scarring.

Layers of crisscrossing scars on the protoform, a finger’s breadth apart. Claws. Far smaller than Predaking’s, but the wounds had been deep and ugly, judging from the ragged, knotted scar tissue. They all looked about the same age.

Ratchet bent forward to examine the wound, hoped Megatron hadn’t noticed the hesitation. “This one’s minor too. I’ll spray it with a sealant so you don’t have energon buildup under there.” He swabbed, brisk and efficient, professional, making sure not a hint of his true feelings showed. He could feel the ridges of the scar tissue even through the metalmesh, and pushed aside the rendering of the original damage his processor provided. 

Once the new injury was clean, he applied the sealant. “Try not to strain yourself until the nanites have gotten time to work,” he said. He looked up at Megatron then. 

Megatron looked down at him with a small, sad smile. “It’s all right,” he said. “They’re hardly subtle.” A gesture took in the patchwork of scars. 

“I didn’t realize…” started Ratchet, then stopped, unsure of what to say. 

“That Magnus and his Wreckers were so thorough?” said Megatron. “It’s their sole virtue.” He looked down at himself. “Those scars are under every bit of plating that had transformation protocols. I’m still impressed that Knockout managed to stop the leaking before I bled out.”

That was a horrifying prospect. Ratchet looked at him, reached out, unsure if his touch was welcome. 

Megatron took his hand and held it, dropped a kiss on the back. “We all bear scars,” he said. “There is no shame in that.” 

He rose to go, tucking his armor back into place. 

_Do not spend your life in mourning for me,_ the memory of Optimus’s voice said. _Do not feel guilty for loving again.  Ratchet, will you promise me that?_

Ratchet hesitated. _Look where it got me last time_ , he said to that memory, angry. 

But this wasn’t the same. He knew it even as he thought that. Megatron, this Megatron, was kind and good, even when he had no cause to be. He’d gotten to know that over the last year, past all doubt. Optimus would have approved.

Ratchet was fond of Megatron. A deep warmth bloomed in his chestplates every time he thought of the other mech. He looked up, meant to say something, but a great anxiety closed his vocalizer and no words came. 

Megatron gave him a little smile, not like Optimus at all, and stepped out of the room. 

Ratchet let out a long ventilation, pinched his nasal ridge, and leaned back against the berth. 

“I can’t do it,” he said to himself. “Not so soon after.”

He was lying to himself, he knew with the next ventilation. It wasn’t too soon. This had nothing to do with that other Optimus, and everything to do with Ratchet’s appraisal of himself. He didn’t deserve this. He’d made such enormous mistakes before. He’d ruin it, and it would hurt him more—worse still, he’d drag Megatron down with him. 

He groaned and pressed his face into his hands. He shouldn’t do this. But that thought hurt. He wanted this. He wanted this badly. 

But he’d wanted Optimus, too. Not just his sparkmate, but that other Optimus, and he still didn’t know why. Because he’d sounded like his sparkmate? Because he’d been terrified and alone, desperate for a warm frame, some kind of sentient contact? Whatever it had been, he’d been sorely mistaken. It showed he couldn’t trust his judgement. 

_Megatron is different,_ he told himself, and wasn’t sure if it was true, wasn’t sure if he was only trying to justify this to himself. 

“I can’t do this,” he said again, aloud, pushed himself off the berth, and went to go collect Asclepius from Soundwave. 

* * *

 

“I hope you recharged well,” said Megatron, placed the cube he’d just drawn from the energon dispenser in Ratchet’s hands, and went to draw another for himself. It was done with an entirely unconscious courtesy, unconscious and unplanned, as the cube now in Ratchet’s hands was clearly the one Megatron had intended for himself. 

“Megatron, I—” said Ratchet, stopped as Megatron looked at him, half-turning, still in the act of filling the cube. He squared his shoulders. “I’ve thought about it,” he said. “I’m going to stay.”

Megatron just looked at him. The level in the cube approached dangerous levels. 

“Megatron—”

“Thank you,” said Megatron, and smiled. “I am deeply glad we will have you aboard.”

“Megatron—”

“You are welcome here, and I am honored—”

“ _Megatron, the cube!_ ”

Megatron looked down at the dispenser, the cube that brimmed over, said something decidedly un-Prime-like, and clicked off the dispenser. He bent hastily to drink some before it overflowed, then straightened up again, looking at the residue on his claws with the probable intent of licking them clean. 

Ratchet found himself smiling with a deep fondness, then stopped as the second realization hit. Optimus had not done anything like that. Optimus would never have that reaction, if by some chance he did manage such a feat. He was not imposing his fondness for Optimus on a stand-in. This was for Megatron, none other. 

He stared stupidly at Megatron, who was still contemplating the issue of the cube.  Asclepius shifted her weight on his back and pushed small hands against his shoulder so she could see what occasioned such a fuss. She chirred. 

Megatron smiled at him, took another gulp from the cube, and made a mute motion at the seating area.

He didn’t say a word about the whole issue of courting. 

* * *

 

The conclusion became more inescapable by the day. 

_Frag. Primus dammit_ , thought Ratchet, autoclaving surgical materials while Asclepius chirped commentary from her sling. _No. One sparkbond was enough. I can’t feel another die. I can’t do this._

Never mind if he wanted to. 

Once the autoclave was sealed and working—with a peculiar high pitched whine that Asclepius immediately objected to with an almost identical noise—he went back to his office, which had been throughly childproofed. He played with her for a while, something involving her building blocks having distinct personalities, if her tone of voice was any indication. After a while, he brought his paperwork down, since his left pede seemed to be colonized by a group of blocks intent on exploration, and then solidly ignored it. 

_I’m her parent_ , he told the part of him that lifted with excitement when he heard Megatron’s voice outside his office, discussing something with Knockout. _I’m her parent, that’s my first duty. I don’t have time for that romantic slag._

He looked at Asclepius, found her staring at the office doors and Megatron’s bulk with intense interest. She made an inquiring noise, and using his knee and then the desk for balance, tottered over to the door, where she hesitated, obviously not steady enough to release her support, but wanting to go further. 

Ratchet displaced blocks and paperwork, and went to assist her. Evidently, Asclepius had figured out her feelings about Megatron. And Knockout. She seemed equally interested in both of them. Ratchet just wished things could be so simple for him. 

Megatron, again, said nothing about courting, made much of Asclepius, displaced an adventurous block from Ratchet’s shoulder plating, and gave him a smile that made his spark, against all laws of mechanics, feel like it had stopped. 

He looked from Asclepius to Megatron, and heaved a long ventilation. Maybe the kid knew better than him. 

* * *

 

Two weeks of inner turmoil later, Ratchet tapped on the bulkhead by Megatron’s quarters. The door sprang open immediately. Megatron looked down at him with polite interest and some confusion. 

“Yes,” said Ratchet, quickly, before his processor could catch up with what he was saying, before he could think himself out of it again.

Megatron looked down at him with polite, utter confusion. “Yes to what?”

Ratchet froze. Then forced, “I want to court you,” out of his vocalizer before he could think about how fragged _stupid_ it sounded. 

Megatron still stared. Ratchet’s tanks lurched. He’d spent all this time thinking about it. What if Megatron had changed his mind?

Megatron bent, telegraphing every move, caught Ratchet around the shoulders, and kissed him. Gentle at first; when Ratchet reciprocated, it became passionate, biting. Ratchet’s interface components heated up from the kiss alone, and the world lurched under them. 

An impact smacked their helms together, and Ratchet jerked back to find Megatron sprawled under him. The door slid shut behind them. 

Ratchet, to his embarrassment, realized his knee was pressed firmly up against Megatron’s interface panel, which was running as hot as he felt. 

“I assume Soundwave has Asclepius,” said Megatron. 

“Yes,” said Ratchet. “For several hours. Basic lessons, socialization.”

“Good,” said Megatron, and leaned up again to kiss him. He hoped Megatron didn’t hear the sound of his spike knocking against its cover. He didn’t want to push things—he hadn’t meant to do anything but tell Megatron, but the weeks of frustration built up, and it was so good to be held and kissed like that, and there was no reservation this time, this was the _right thing_ —

But he didn’t want to rush Megatron. “Megatron,” he started, at the same moment Megatron said, “Ratchet,” and there was a moment of mutual awkwardness as they looked at each other, gesturing _you go first, no you go._

“I hope I’m not rushing things,” said Ratchet at last, since Megatron seemed determined to be the politer. 

Megatron laughed. “I was concerned I was the one rushing things,” he said, and sat up, gathering Ratchet in close. 

Ratchet was now uncomfortably aware of his panel pressed up against Megatron’s thigh. He knew he was running hot—he could still feel the heat of Megatron’s panel on his hip—he just hoped he wasn’t actively leaking yet. 

Megatron smelled good, not Optimus’s dusty familiar mix of human waxes and the strange sweetness of earth soaps, but a sharp combination of oil and metal shavings. Ratchet pressed his helm against Megatron’s, felt Megatron’s hand ghost over his hip and bit his lip to stifle a moan. 

“Do you want to—”

“Yes,” he said. 

Megatron chuckled. “Hadn’t finished my sentence,” he said. 

“If the rest of that question was ‘frag me silly’, you didn’t need to.”

“It was,” said Megatron, and Pit with foreplay, Ratchet reached for his hip and panels, releasing his own at the first touch of Megatron’s blunt fingers. Megatron made a stifled sound, tilting his hips up into Ratchet’s touch. “Berth?” he said. “Too old for the floor.”

“Berth,” said Ratchet, and found himself scooped up and deposited neatly at the foot of the massive berth. Megatron sat at the head of it, swung his legs up. 

“Spike or valve?” asked Ratchet. “Both?”

“Valve,” said Megatron immediately, spread his legs to give Ratchet access. 

Ratchet grinned at him, palmed the cover, enjoyed the way Megatron’s helm fell back, the way his mouth parted in a moan, the rapid snap of the panel retracting. He rubbed a finger over the exposed valve, hot and slick, circled the anterior node. Pressed a palm over the opening, Megatron wet and clenching against his hand. “Tease,” Megatron hissed. 

Ratchet laughed, slid a finger in, enjoying the wet slick clench around him, the ridges and folds of the valve moving as the calipers cycled. Megatron growled, frustrated. Ratchet added another finger, spread them.

He watched Megatron’s face as he worked, the way his mouth opened as he stifled  his moans, the wideness of his optics. The little grunts and gasps that did escape. The way his claws worked on the berth, the strangled demand for _more, please, Pit frag it, Ratchet!_

His self-control could only bear so much. Ratchet slid forward, lifting himself to settle with his spike against Megatron’s valve. Megatron came gasping back to himself, smiled at him, reached up and dragged him down for a kiss. Ratchet slid forward, and did not bother to stifle his own moan as Megatron’s wet slick heat surrounded him. 

The clench and roll of the calipers was even better than he’d imagined. He moved again, moaned at the drag of his spike over sensor clusters, and Megatron grinned up at him with smug satisfaction. 

Ratchet smiled back at him, and thrust. Megatron’s turn to cry out. He seized Megatron by the hips and moved hard and fast, reveling in the growing volume of both their cries. Megatron clenched and rippled hard around him in his first overload. It was all Ratchet could do not to follow him over the edge. He kept moving, and the little noise Megatron made at the spike in his sensitized valve undid him. He _tried_ to keep moving, two thrusts, then the overload had him and the snap of electricity between them sent Megatron over again. 

When they’d come back to themselves, Megatron gathered Ratchet into his arms. Ratchet leaned forward, letting his helm fall against Megatron’s. 

“Very effective courting,” said Megatron, still venting hard, and a wicked grin spread across his faceplates. 

“I’ll have to arrange things with Knockout,” said Ratchet. “I cannot continue to be your physician if we have a relationship, even if we do not sparkbond.”

“Do you want a sparkbond?” said Megatron. 

“ _That_ , I don’t want to rush,” said Ratchet, searching the blue optics below his. “But I do think we’ll get to it.”

Megatron’s optics turned up in the corners as he smiled. “Yes,” he said. “Thank you. I’ll take your lead; I’ve never been bonded before.”

Ratchet rubbed a hand over the edges of Megatron’s helm. “You set the pace,” he said, leaned down against him. 

The internal alarm indicating there was less than half an hour before he had to pick up Asclepius picked that moment to go off. He sat up in a hurry, with a muttered curse. Megatron blinked up at him, obviously startled.

“Oh no,” said Ratchet, by way of explaination. “Soundwave’s almost done with lessons.”

“We should clean up,” said Megatron. “I have washracks. This way.”

As they scrubbed each other with clumsy haste, stole a few moments in a tight embrace, Ratchet smiled. It felt right, like he belonged, natural as transforming. Not at all like Optimus; there was no confusing this with what he’d had with Optimus. It was different, but equally good, equally comfortable. 

He realized it had been a long time since he had awoken from recharge too miserable to move, a long time since he’d felt the spark-deep misery and loss for hours on end. They were still there. But sometime in the last few months, they had become bearable. 

Bearable would do, for now, and in the meantime, there was this new life to be had. That would do. That would do very well. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you everyone for following this series!


End file.
